The excerpt below comes from British football journalist Simon Kuper’s “Soccer Against the Enemy,” in explaining the differences in culture between the British and Dutch with regards to how they treat conflict, and how it impacts the sporting football fortunes of the two nations. The references are dated and I think this was originally published in 1992.

“We Dutchmen are pigheaded,” summed up Johann Cruyff, the greatest of them all (and the most pigheaded). “Even when we’re on the other side of the world, we’re always telling people how to do things. In that respect, we’re an unpleasant nation.”

Unpleasant perhaps, but successful. Dutch soccer works. It seems that if you let players think for themselves they win soccer matches. Over the last 20 years, no other small nation (and of the large nations, only Germany and Argentina) has won as much as Holland. No one else has played as gloriously. It is precisely because the Dutch talk so much that they can play the way they do. A player has to understand his role.

One Genoa manager tried to make his team play total soccer like Ajax, and failed. (Player) Vant Schip commented: “To play the Ajax system you have to understand it, and especially talk about it a lot.”

The difference is down to Dutch working-class culture. The Dutch working classes value debate. They are Calvinists (Even Dutch Catholics have strong Calvinist traits) and Calvin told the faithful to ignore priests and to read the Bible themselves. The result is that a 20-year-old Dutch soccer player assumes that he is as likely to have the Truth as his manager.

Since these books and authors kept popping up in a lot of sports literature, I thought I’d read them They’re all worth reading). I’ve written about the first 3 books and finally got round to reading 5 Dysfunctions of a team.

Some interesting things about the book:

The assertion in the book is that conflict plays a crucial role in the health of a team. People need to have their opinions heard before they can buy in and commit to an idea they don’t necessarily agree with. And if people don’t buy in, then it’s a lot harder to hold them accountable to the goals of the team and the responsibilities they have been given.

For the right kind of conflict to occur, people need to have trust. The kind of trust that is needed is trust that their vulnerabilities will not be used against them when voicing an opinion or holding others accountable. A fear of appearing vulnerable is a big inhibitor to a healthy team

The book is written in the negative. It gets confusing in that it first presents these ideas in the negative before explaining how the concepts can be used in the positive.

Certainly it all makes sense, and since reading it, I have made an effort to get teams I am involved with to have more open discussion and let the whole group hear when someone disagrees with something. Before I tended to think of conflict as a bad thing and it was part of the coach’s job to make sure people always got along and diffuse arguments where possible. Now I think it’s about encouraging the right kind of arguments.

It’s the kind of conflict that Abraham Lincoln used in his Team of Rivals cabinet and the Dutch have been using to be a football powerhouse for decades.

Having an opinion, engaging is healthy debate and being open with conflict are all part of western liberal democratic thinking. I’m not sure it works so well in countries where the culture is hierarchical, to get along and not cause conflicts with your team and superiors. Are these cultures susceptible to groupthink and the lack of innovation, creativity and commitment that more conflict-comfortable enjoy? Or is there another way?

I remember a few years ago I joined a volleyball club in South Australia to learn how their men’s team had been consistently successful for so long with varying pools of talent. I expected to learn a system that could re-applied but was surprised to find there wasn’t a clear system they had used over the years. In fact the players and coaches argued over just about everything, but it was out of that conflict that created a culture with a high volleyball IQ and buy-in for whichever system they used at the time.

It was disappointing but we made good progress in reinventing the way we play – Being able to receive serve closer to the net; being able to better defend attacks that are not hard driven; playing a faster offense. As I like to say to our head coach this is more than just a team or squad but a modernisation project.

Some highlights were when we played well and could go toe-to-toe with our opponents. Executing a game plan well and rattling China enought to call a timeout against us was great too. Sadly I feel that given our result the way we think the game should be moving in Australia won’t be picked up.

What I got out of this is how much better at competing players from other countries were. I have some thoughts on this:

A significant number of our players didn’t play much indoor competition this year. In fact for some of them, all the indoor games they played had been on tour with our program. They trained at a high level but didn’t play many games. The rest of our players played in fairly low level competition. Only three players in our squad signed up for Australian Volleyball League. In contrast our opponents were exposed to high level competition. Thailand’s Pimpichaya Kokram played in the Thai national league alongside and against members of the senior women’s national team who finished 4th in WGP last year!

School volleyball is a big part of volleyball in Australia. State volleyball (AJVC) feels like a step up and is also a big part of volleyball in Australia. But it wasn’t until I was exposed to international competition that I could appreciate the massive gap there was between our domestic junior competitions and international competitions. And having low nets and 12 sub rule makes it harder to adjust. From watching Thai school teams with 13-14 year olds train and play against us: they always used 3 receivers forcing kids to pass large areas of the court; they learned how to play fast tempo early; played 6 sub rule and had to find solutions when the setter was front court; and most importantly the net was always full height. In short, their “school volleyball” translated better to their higher level volleyball than ours did. On our second-to-last day we played a game against Sura Nari’s junior team (13-14 year olds) I was refereeing and took a photo of their players and ours at the net to highlight the height difference. While we as Australians argue about whether having the net at full height for 15-year-olds would turn them off from the game, Thai people have no issue getting much smaller 13 and 14 year olds to play on a full height net. Perhaps they see adversity as an opportunity to grow and learn instead of a bar that needs to be lowered. Or maybe they’re just too lazy to change the height of the net.

I’m embarrassed to say that as Australians we’re more worried about whether our taller 15-year-old players will enjoy volleyball on a full height net that Than people are about their much smaller 13 year olds playing on a full height net.

Australian coach Huy Nguyen meets Vietnamese referee Huy Nguyen…. no one seemed more amused by this than me…

The teams float serve hard, with many players able to put a floating ball to consistently land in the back metre of the court just clearing the net by centimetres. It was common to see teams receive below 50% positive

The offence is not always wide. It was common to see fast outside balls set to 30cm to a metre inside the antenna. The good spikers were drilled to make adjustments and play good angles to make use of a hittable ball that stayed in tempo.

Combinations using an outside hitter or opposite to attack in the middle zone were common. A simple solution for the fact many teams didn’t have hitters who could kill the ball consistently in all 5 zones.

All star awards were just weird with the winners of the best and 2nd best middle blocker awards both being players who played as passer-hitters. Seriously, compare the awards published with the videos below!

Korea (4th)

The smallest of the 4 semi-finalists, Korea relied on it’s Middle attackers #3 An, #4 Kim and #9 Jeong, where the mis-match at the net was minimalised. Out of system, the team relied on diminutive outside hitters #10 Ko Minji (who won the Best Outside Hitter award), and #18 Yoo. Korea was also one of 2 teams with a dedicated scout (the same scout Korea had at U19s), and implemented a great plan against Thailand to take a much stronger team to five sets. Unfortunately they fell ever so close and couldn’t back it up against China the next day losing the Bronze medal.

China (3rd)

The tallest of the 4 semifinallists. The standout on the team was 14-year-old #1 Li Ying Ying – A left handed outside hitter who led the scoring in just about every game she played, she probably deserved the best outside spiker award, but somehow managed to win best Middle Blocker (Perhaps a nod to the time Russian setting great Vyacheslav Zaitsev won the Best Receiver in the 1977 World Cup).

China was big but seemed less advanced than the other 3 teams. They were slower and played the simpler system with less variation. Their attack tendencies were more predictable and their attackers had a limited (but still formidable) range of shots. While the team that played ay U19s was serious and all business, this team seemed a lot more playful and friendlier – they would talk to the other teams, take photos with them and even swap uniforms on the last night.

* * *

One of the odd quirks at AVC tournaments is the occasional requirement for each team to perform a musical number on stage at the opening ceremony. I think it’s a weird Asian thing and happens at all sorts of other events. While this used to happen more frequently, it’s becoming less common and we weren’t required to perform this time. This didn’t stop China from volunteering (yes folks, this actually happened). And for the life of me I have no idea why our team volunteered after with a bizarre rendition of “Land Downunder”. Anyhow, i digress.

* * *

Out of a combination of pride and youthful confidence, China managed to take a much stronger Thailand to 5 sets in the crossover round, before being methodically dismantled by Japan in the semi finals. They were able to finish strong with a win over Korea for the Bronze medal.

Thailand

What can I say? They were awesome to watch and on paper possibly the best team with an unstoppable offence when they got going. No other team created as much time pressure on their opponents as Thailand. The reception or dig was usually low and tight to the net, and the ball came out fast to the outside or middle. They had 3 players who were starters in the U19 team that lost the Bronze medal at AVC in July in 5 sets – #1 Anisa (Libero), #9 Chutchuon Moksri and #12 Pimpichaya Kokram. Chutchuon had been in the Thai World Champs team that competed in Italy earlier in the month! Pimpichaya won best opposite attacker (deservingly, scoring 20 kills in the semi-final and 15 kills in the gold medal match), while Chutchuon won 2nd best outside hitter and setter #13 Natthanicha Chaisan won best setter.

They played in the rotation with the middle following the setter. They were simply fun to watch because of their dynamic game and the large crowds they drew due to the popularity of the sport (you’ll notice the attendances are much better in the Thai scouting video). Both Korea and Japan, with scouting were able to exploit weak rotations, and put them under enough pressure to make them predictable enough to beat or get very close.

Japan

Once again Japan turned up as the most professional outfit, with the best uniforms and the best equipment, and the best scout. They didn’t seem to have anyone who was the best at anything but had the uncanny ability to collectively make the best on-court decisions time and again. Captain and opposite #5 Airi Miyabe won MVP and was simply clutch in the Gold medal match scoring off a lot of high balls. Her teammates #9 Kanoha Kagamihara won best Libero and #12 Miyu Nakagawa won 2nd best middle blocker (like China’s Li Ying Ying who won best middle blocker, Nakagawa was also an outside hitter).

Japan didn’t drop a set until the Gold Medal match, and facing an intimidating Thai offence with the competition’s 2 best spikers, came up with a game plan that did enough to help them win narrowly. Japan had the 2 best “actual” middle blockers in #4 Shiori Aratani, who received serve in EVERY rotation and #12 Haruka Sekiyama. What impressed me most about Japan is they had the deepest understanding of the game to get the best out of themselves. Where China and Thailand became one-dimensional under pressure, Japan could improvise and find a way to keep their weapons in the game. They played a system where the middle blocker and receiver next to the opposite went off for the libero, and were somehow less confused than the other teams that played a simpler system. They also had wonderful role players, from #14 Miku Shimada who as a serving sub scored aces, and backup setter #8 Manami Mandai who closed a 6 point deficit in the semi final match to get them to 21-21 during a double sub stint.

Not much to say. The scores flatter China but they were never in it. Japan didn’t play at 100%. China looked confused out-of system, whereas Japan seemed comfortable. China (receiving at 48% positive and 36% perfect) received better than Japan (21% positive and 10% perfect), but scored much less in the middle – China’s middle blockers scored a combined 6 kils from 19 attempts while Japan’s middle blockers scored 12 from 21 attempts. Japan were just much better at scoring off reception and in transition, in fast tempo offence and in high ball situations.

This was definitely the best game to watch. Korea threw everything they had at Thailand with some small unathletic looking players doing extraordinary things. Korea fell 16-14 at the very end, with both teams scoring 112 points. Korea played slightly better in attack and reception but it wasn’t enough. Korea’s effort in its combination of scouting, execution, team play and guts was just impressive, but alas, not enough. The stronger team playing below its best went through.

I didn’t actually see this match live as we were doing 1-on-1 meetings with the players. I watched and coded it after. Disappointingly, Korea didn’t back up their performance the night before and a proud China were determined to finish on a high.

This was a great game. We had played Thailand in a practice game and they seemed invincible. They had the two best spikers and aggressive serving to force teams to play slow. The question was could Thailand put Japan under enough pressure to prevent Japan from playing it’s game? Thailand attacked better on reception, but Japan was able to create enough transition points to stay level and win. Both teams received as well (or poorly), but Japan managed to attack more with its middles – 17 kills from 32 attacks compared with Thailand’s 4 kills from 11 attacks.

Japan had clearly prepared well. You could see their leftist blocker holding on the B-Ball not concerned about the backcourt attack. Japan didn’t neutralise Thailand’s two biggest weapons Cutchuon who scored 17 kills or Pimpichaya who scored 15 kills. Thailand really could have won. They were leading 23-22 in both the 2nd and 4th sets. Japan was just slightly better. Miyabe and Nakagawa were Japan’s best performers on 16 kills each, many off high-balls from poor reception and good defensive plays. As a sign of their flexibility, Japan moved Miyabe to Outside hitter so they could start their second opposite and reverse the 3rd set 18-25 loss to win the 4th set 26-24. The change in lineup wasn’t a big deal for them. The reception lineups changing and the libero changing for different players wasn’t a big deal. Japan’s maturity, adaptability and understanding of the game were just phenomenal.

When she was a child, she dreamt of graduating from a Bangkok university but realised that the family’s modest income, with father working at a sugar factory in Ratchaburi, wasn’t going to fully cover her study costs. To accomplish her goal, she needed to get a scholarship. With her brother emerging as a keen footballer and her elder sister in the school volleyball team, she decided to focus on sports.

I’ve previously written about extrinsic motivation here and here, and how in contemporary western culture, we underestimate its value in preference to encouraging in children a sense of intrinsic motivation towards what they choose to do.

I’m not sure how much it costs to send someone to a Bangkok university, but for less than A$1000 a year, you could pay for a year’s tuition and boarding expenses at the university where our liaisons for AVC U17s studied. It’s not that much money, but for Nootsara being very good at volleyball was the difference between getting a university education or not.

While many of the young players I work with have aspirations to get a playing scholarship in the US or Canada, it’s not quite the same motivation. They can still settle for a decent education in Australia if they don’t get there.

The image above comes from a promotional newspaper sized handout about the Thai women’s national team and their apparel sponsor, Grand Sport. Interestingly in the photo 3 of the 4 higher profile players WIlavan, Pleumjit and Ouma all have braces on their teeth (the 4th player, #13 Nootsara actually has them too). They make no attempt to conceal it. Included in the handout is an A2 sized poster of the 14 players squad, and you can see 11 players smiling with braces. These players are in their mid 20s or older.

While having braces is an awful, awkward rite of passage or most Australians, the privilege of straight teeth is not something to be taken for granted in Thailand.

* * *

3 days before the U17G Asian Volleyball Championships started, we got to play the Thai U17G team. They were significantly stronger and probably got no value out of the exercise. They probably agreed to play us out of courtesy from the good relationship our federations have with each other. Certainly China, Japan, Korea and Taipei would have said no. And of course we were soundly beaten. Beaten by players for whom volleyball can make the difference between getting a university education or not; the difference between getting straight teeth or not; and the chance to be part of the most popular sports team in the country. They were armed with far superior skill – the kind of skill forged from thousands of hours of highly motivated practice from people who were simply hungrier. We didn’t stand a chance.

Maybe that’s why I’m so passionate about working in our national programs. Because it’s a chance to expose people to a real level of competition that isn’t the false economy we have been used to for years. We are so used to seeing what it means to be the best country at AFL Football, Netball and Rugby League that it’s refreshing to see what it’s like to compete in a sport that a significant number of other countries actually give a shit about.

Currently I’m in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand with the Australian Youth (U17) Girls team preparing for Asian Championships, which starts in 4 days. After travelling with the Junior Women (U19) in July and both groups in April, this is my 3rd tour and I would have spent 7 weeks away from work and overseas.

Thailand is a cool place volleyball wise. It’s the most popular sport for women and a popular spectator sport (after Soccer of course). The national women’s team has enjoyed great success in recent years with a win at Senior Asian Championships and 4th place at World Grand Prix last year. As such they’re quite popular with sell out games and have their own TV Show.

For the first few days we’re training at Sura Nari Wittaya school – a school with 4000 students, which has put about 100 players into the women’s national team including the current captain. The teams here are really good. We played the Sura Nari Wittaya school team today and lost in 5 sets.

Generally we train twice a day, or once a day if we have a game (or trial match). It’s a more demanding workload than a lot of players are used to back in Australia. It’s a good coaching staff to be a part of. Everyone has good general skills but also specialist skills for this level of competition. My job is to do a lot of the video/statistical analysis and scouting work, but for now while we’re in preparation, I get to help out in trainings hitting downfalls, chipping free-balls and coaching a side in scrimmages. The Head Coach Nam is also master of quite a few coaching trades (he pretty much can do all our jobs) having assisted the senior women’s team for a long time and a practical joker. Bill, who by now I’ve worked with on countless teams is tour manager, but helps out in trainings and takes some stats during games. He’ll be on the radio from he stands. The last member of the team is Anna, who at 21 still has the playing fitness to jump on the court to help out in scrimmages and as a final year physiotherapy student acts as the team’s trainer. It’s a good set of skills. Not every team that tours gets a physio and/or performance analyst.

The players have been great so far and quite professional. It’s easy to forget they’re still young. At this age, they have less competing demands on their time and we have been lucky to get all 12 players we initially selected.

We play our first game on Saturday against the Philippines.

The Sura Nari Wittaya School gym. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. There’s no walls on the long sides so it’s well ventilated. No Doors on either end – you can walk right through. It;s fan friendly with two banks of seating, loudspeakers along the ceiling and lights.

I love it how gyms in Thailand are built for spectators. In this case a modest scoreboard. If there’s a scrimmage it’s not unusual to have a couple of kids hanging around watching and updating scoreboards.

There’s a Video Ezy in the small town we’re competing in. Random.

The kids from the school training before us washing the coach’s car because they lost the scrimmage.

On the school bus travelling to the training venue

The mall complex where we will be competing. There’s a lot of shops, a water amusement park and what appears to be a “magic mountain” styled water feature.

Preparing for our trial game against the school team. We lost 2-3. They’re really good!

The brass band practising. Yep that’s about 4 Glockenspiels under the verandah. There were two girls practicing rifle drills with wooden rifles around the corner.

The national league team training after the trial game. There’s about 5 national team players from this club team including the current captain,

There is not hyperbole in the title. After years of testing, the Perana Sports folks who made VBStatsHD have made VideoTagger – an easy-to-use video tagging application that lets you create your own templates and interfaces.

VBStatsHD is great – in fact I love to use it for both our match analysis during games and for scouting when I am assisting coaches. However many people who have tried VBStatsHD are overwhelmed by the number of buttons and options (you usually have to key in 3 buttons to code an action).

This is where VideoTagger comes in. You can create really simple templates and interfaces.

Step 1: Create your own custom template

Step 2: Code the game

Step 3: Upload the video, synch and then select the events you want to see or export.

For example, I use a simple template to code my own matches while I am coaching the game on my own without an assistant. The interface simply has a button for each player, and a button for 6 actions (Serve, Receive, Set, Spike, Block, Dig). So it’s only 2 buttons for any touch.

Other coaches use it for scouting, where they only code the rotations (S1, S2, S3 etc).

Just like VBStatsHD, you can code stuff live and upload the and synch the video later, or upload the video first and code later.

It’s a great entry level application for video analysis for only $10! Trust me, it’ll be the best $10 you ever spent on volleyball related stuff.

A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate to be a ringer on the coaching staff in a Victorian State League Grand Final. My good friend Bill was the assistant coach of Yarra Ranges Premier Men, and I had worked with 8 of the players and coaching staff in the Victorian state teams over the last couple of years, so was more than happy to help out when asked. I’ve now been involved as a coach in state league grand finals in 3 states.

Most of my work was done before I even arrived in Melbourne for the game having coded the semi-final and preliminary final matches. I coded games the head coach, Luke, had posted on youtube and provided statistical and video analysis that helped Bill and Luke come up with the game plan. In the end the game plan we started with didn’t work, but the research, and in-game stats we took on both sides of the net helped us make the adjustments to win. During the game I took stats on the other team while one of the other coaches, Allan, kept stats on our team.

The Teams

Yarra was playing Southern Cross Cobras. The 2 teams had been the 2 strongest teams all season. Yarra had comprehensively beaten SSC in 3 straight sets in their semi final but SSC would not be so easy this time round. Both teams were coached by ex Olympic Middle Blockers: Yarra by the former Australian captain Luke Campbell and SCC by Ben Loft. Yarra had won last year’s premiership and despite losing 3 starters, still had the best all round player (Steve Wallace), middle blocker (Campbell) and scorer (Kiwi Ben O’Dea). SCC had the best libero (Cam Blewett) and two formidable passer hitters (Jason Hughes and Matt Richards).

The Game

Yarra won the first set narrowly 27-25. They had outscored SCC 18 kills to 11, but 14 unforced errors from spiking and serving had kept SCC in the game. SCC owned the next set winning 25-15 as Yarra struggled with consistency. Our best player Steve Wallace was struggling in attack scoring only 1 kill in each of the 2 sets. SCC’s best player was Matt Richards scoring 7 from 12 in the first 2 sets. Although he lead his team’s scoring, Richo’s numbers didn’t jump out at me, but did something to stir Bill’s gut feeling. Impressively while we were being thoroughly beaten in the 2nd set, Luke swapped his player’s hat for his coach’s hat and subbed himself off to talk tactics with Bill and figure out what to do.

Bill suggested a revised lineup for the third set. The two key moves were Steve (who had been playing as a receiving opposite-hitter) would be moved to passer-hitter next to the setter, and Ben O’Dea (who had been playing passer-hitter in front court, but hit right side in backcourt) would be moved to opposite to create a match up on Richo. Ben had lead our team in attacks up to that point getting set just under half of the balls hitting 16 from 28, and so there would be a risk making the move. The other consequence was it matched up the playing-coaches Luke Campbell on Ben Loft in the front court.

The moves worked. In the third set, SCC’s setter responded to the bigger block on Richo and set him less. He only scored 4 more kills in the next 2 sets. Steve got out of his funk and dominated scoring 8 kills in the next 2 sets. The move didn’t affect Ben O’Dea’s scoring effectiveness at all as he scored even more points in the 3rd and 4th sets than he had in the first 2. He would finish the game as our best player scoring 35 kills. Luke Campbell and Ben Loft’s duel was great to watch and Luke got the last word winning a huge joust on 17-9 in the 4th set. We won the 3rd set narrowly 28-26 (we dominated but made 12 unforced errors) and 25-11 in the 4th set (we made less errors, and SCC lost some steam)

* * *

The celebration afterwards was great. Two of the Yarra families owned vineyards and so there was plenty of great wine at an intimate party at a cellar door. They also inducted the first of their life members and the stories that flowed during the citations and mingling were great. There was plenty of celebrating with our young Div 2 men’s team also winning their premiership playoff. The good news also came that Ben O’Dea had won a contract to play professionally in 2nd Division in Germany and our setter, Linford had scored a contract in 1st Division in Holland. It was a pretty cool weekend!

So screening on the serve is still against the rules. But referees are apparently not allowed to call it. This one team at Asian Junior Championships used it a lot. One referee called them on it and they stopped… but the referee got marked down in the assessment for calling it. Good on them I say. Volleyball is about reading, which you can’t do when people are blocking your view of the cues.

They played against Japan in the finals and got smashed. It’s good to see gimmicks like that not working on the best teams.

Often in sport we talk about “growing the base of the pyramid”. More participation translates into a larger number of elite athletes at the pointy end (surely). However, a friend of mine who works as a High Performance Manager told me recently this is not a paradigm that will help Australia compete with larger countries. As such, sports such as volleyball in Australia focuses many of its development resources on (let’s be blunt) tall players. In countries where the pyramid paradigm works, “tall” players are still developed, but smaller skilled players can stay in the system for longer… This post is dedicated to those short players at the Asian Women’s U19 Volleyball Championships who I found impressive. I define short as 175 cm or below.

#1 Mizuki Yanagita (JPN)

Height: 168cm

Spike: 300cm

Block: 276cm

Japan’s inspirational captain. She was a great back row attacker and coolly stepped into the role of setter in the semi final after the starting setter went down in the 2nd set with an injury on set point 24-21. Unfazed, Yanagita setting won the set point and she led the team to win the 3rd set and match, as well as the first set in the Gold Medal game. Despite losing, Japan still outscored China in Attacks 50 kills to 43.

#13 Tseng Wan Ling (TPE)

Height: 175cm

Spike: 285cm

Block: 282cm

Tseng was exceptionally good at hitting a B-Ball. possibly the best in the tournament. As a middle attacker, she was the top scorer for Chinese Taipei in their win against Korea where she scored 10 points.

#7 Patcharaporn Sittisad (THA)

Height: 164cm

Spike: 278cm

Block: 263cm

Thailand’s captain Sittisad was not a starter but made an impact when she came on. She led her club team Bodindecha to beat Australia in the Bronze medal match of the Sealack tournament in April, scoring most of the points. She looked tiny with this worried look on her face but absolutely kicked us. It was good to see her play well when she was on at the Asian Junior Championships.

#7 Pham Thi Hue (VIE)

Height: 170cm

Spike Reach: 280cm

Block: 278cm

A starter for Vietnam playing passer-hitter next too the setter. Often hit a metre ball. Vietnam were a short team and also had a starting middle, opposite and setter all below 175cm.

#2 Emma Flynn (NZ)

Height: 169cm

Spike: 278cm

Block: 268cm

She killed us when we played them in the crossovers as the 2nd highest scorer on her team and getting 2 kill blocks. She played a lot bigger than her size often going for the line shot at the antenna.